Chapter 473 - The thoughtful absentee father

Author's note:

Hey! I was thinking of taking a week off to rest and play the Elden Ring DLC from June 21 to July 1st, but we're approaching the end of the arc, and that could make things awkward, so since I do not know how many chapters we have left exactly, what I'm going to do is

-If the arc ends before June 21 I'll finish the week off by writing extra chapters from another character's pov.

-If the arc is not over by June 21 I'll push my break back until the arc is over.

-If it ends on the day, means I'm lucky, no change.

I don't want to artificially lengthen or shorten the arc, and taking a break right after or before the end would suck, so this is how it's gonna go. That was all, Happy Reading! (｀• ω •´)b

At her demand, Sofia showed Lina the picture again.

This is frustrating… The Goddess complained. This is the third admin, there is little doubt about it, but I cannot remember anything else, even like that…

How can this image even exist? Clint asked from the side.

“This man’s face wasn’t really on it at first, but I discovered I have the ability to, uh… Un-Deep the things I touch?” Sofia explained.

“Can you bring him back?” Kyle asked, “With him here we just might be able to rescue the other two. Maybe… Or at least we would have a quick resolution to our traitor issue.”

“If you can bring me to the place he was when he got erased, then maybe? I restored the things that were in his room, they were all gone. Here’s what I took, a bunch of maps and this nice planet sculpture.”

Lina looked through the third admin’s items, she looked underwhelmed. Nothing useful here, you can keep all that. If we knew where he disappeared we would lead you there but I fear only himself knows. By the time we even realized something was wrong with our memories, he was long gone.

Sofia stored all the things back. “Also, while we’re at it, I have gotten some ‘information’ about the admins in the form of a few verses. I won’t say where from, but it is reliable. I have it written here,” she told the trio, handing Lina the paper with the Orator’s poem scribbled on it.

Lina quickly read the paper before passing it to Clint, who then passed it to Kyle.

This is nothing new. Lina lamented.

“Well, I tried. Care to explain more about the admins when you feel ready to? All I know about the three admins I had to figure out by myself from this poem and what I found in the house. I only know of Anna’s name, and even though I have the dagger made with her essence I don’t even know what she was the goddess of…”

Is it not obvious? Lina asked with a raised eyebrow. Anna is the divinity of Mana. She was born when everyone started to agree on the name.

Oh… Mana. Yeah there would be a God for that. A rather strong one, even… I was blindsided by her books…

“Wait… If she was the Goddess of mana, was she still born in the Gods’ plane?” Sofia asked.

Of course not. Clint answered. We should go now, I can tell you more on the way, he offered.

Sofia’s expression fell a bit, “Hum… About that. I can give you instructions to find it right now if you want, but upon further consideration, I don’t think it very prudent to leave my and Pareth’s hearts unattended…”

She has a point. Lina agreed, Give us the directions, I will go with Kyle, Clint stay here with you, might as well start working on the Skeleton’s heart, if someone tries to interfere they will do it when it’s your turn.

“Thank you for your consideration. But is Clint fine with that?” Sofia asked the bearded God.

Whatever she says. If the place’s been around three thousand years, it can survive another day or two. Draw them a map or something and we can get to work when they leave. Clint answered.

“Sure. Kyle, do you know the location of the first dungeon I cleared?”

“Your history’s been deleted but my memory isn’t that bad. Northside Marshland test center.”

Sofia nodded, and she started to explain, “Starting from the dungeon, you need to go…”

Clint was sitting at a desk with various small tools, he slowly carved runic paths into Pareth’s mana heart after having polished it down to a round pearl. Sofia and Bookie had been intently watching since the start while Pareth was walking around the forge checking out Clint’s various creations.

After a while, Clint put up his strange visor and stood up from the desk.

We’re done prepping! It turned out quite well, in my opinion. Look at this beauty.

“It looks a bit like a tiny spell catalyser,” Sofia commented.

It’s not that far from that, depending on how you see things. Let me share the final description, since you never got to see that. Here goes.

The image of a ‘system window’ was projected onto the surface of a nearby wall. 

[Chimera’s complete mana heart of Knowledge]: /SSS tier/

‘You needed not fear the result of a hundred battles’

Effects:

• Health +467 012

• Stamina +13 622

• Mana +379 366

• Blunt resistance +25%

• Slashing resistance + 25%

• [Sunless Pulse]

• [Relocate Core]

• [Arclight]

“So the amalgam skill was the pulse attack… It’s not bad. A hundred thousand stat points, though… And… Wait! Isn’t the ‘all stats’ bonus missing?! It should be 220%!”

Oh, right, about that, Clint stepped in, In case you missed that, Mr. Pareth Skeleton here has inflated stats due to his blessing. That won’t be strengthened by the bonus stats. Of course he does still have base stats, but doing things like this is a waste. So I took the liberty to change things a bit.

“How so? That’s 330 000 stat points I would hardly call that a waste.”

Well, hear me out. Some Heroes blessings are gifts from us Gods, magic we lend to the system. Some. The lower tiers blessings like ‘Blessing of Bloating’, though? That’s just the system basically giving you a special skill rebranded as a blessing. The good thing about this is, there is room for improvement. So yeah I changed the heart so that this power goes to the ‘blessing’ instead.

“Really? You can just do that? This could be a lot more stats in total, yeah. I can see why it might be a waste not to… How much will the blessing improve?”

Clint lightly shook his head, No clue lassy, we can only know after it’s done. And yes it can be done, when the circumstances are just right. Not that it happens too often, for you there isn’t a single thing I could really alter with your mana heart. For Pareth it’s different, he has very few skills and the blessing both has room to grow and is also just a stat increase. The perfect candidate for this, essentially.

“Thank you for your hard work.”

Don’t mention it. Let’s get to it, we have some forging to do, it should be relatively quick… Not often that I upgrade a skeleton.

“But not the first time. I assume you worked on Florencia’s mana heart too?” Sofia asked, mentioning Richard’s skeletal ‘daughter’.

That was quite a while ago. I remember her, a feisty one, to be sure. 

“How does fusing the mana heart work with a skeleton even? Since they have no real fixed physical body. It’s a purely soul-side upgrade?”

Clint laughed at the suggestion. What do you think? It’s a mana heart. Ninety percent of what I do is integrating it into your mana blueprint. The physical and spiritual sides of things are just the finishing touches.

Bookie had been relatively silent ever since entering the forge, but he wanted to ask a question, “Mister Creation, can you reach level 250 without a mana heart?”

It’s not impossible, the alternate methods involve creating a Soulstone or a Physikstone, but those are not quite as good as it won’t let your mana regeneration increase anymore. They mostly exist in manaless creatures.

“So you really need to have one of the three?” Bookie asked again.

Yes, without any of those, you’re fucked. Even for us Gods we need to create a temporary mana heart if we want to come to the physical plane and not be weaklings.

Bookie’s jaw dropped, one could hear the horror in his voice “B- But what about me? I- I don’t have anything! Am I stuck?!” He hugged Sofia’s leg and cried. Clint looked at the scene lost for words while Sofia reassured the small skeleton.

“You’ll be fine Bookie. You need to have some trust in your creator. I’m sure he has something planned, if not, I’ll bring his annoying voice here and berate him for you, alright?”

“Y- You promise?”

“We’re not going to leave you behind,” Sofia comforted him, caressing his smooth skull.

Humm… Not to interrupt but, Kyle is not that dumb, you know? If the small one wasn’t part of the trial it’s because he did not need to. Did he not tell you?

“He did not, but that is what I assumed, yes,” Sofia admitted.

“I don’t need to?” Bookie repeated.

That’s right. No need. If it’s a mana heart, you already have one.

Sofia had a sudden revelation. Am I fucking blind?! 

She summoned Bookie’s book form in her hands.

It was right under my nose from the start!

The center of the book cover was adorned with a dark purple gem, beating like a heart, spreading mana through the bones. Sofia’s fingers traced the outline of the small gem, it was the very first thing she had noticed on the day she had gotten the book. She was so used to seeing it that she had never made the connection, but it was painfully obvious now.

“Look, Bookie. It was always here. Your very own mana heart.”